Siam has been only marginally impacted in terms of health and personal freedom by the pandemic. We haven’t had a first wave yet, let alone a second. This may change, of course, all bets are off, but thus far I consider myself doubly lucky to live here, and follow the news from the other side of the world with horror. But then I wander out onto the deck, possibly with a cold beer and a hot dog, watch the birds flying about and the river flowing, and the horror curve flattens into an enjoyably smug complacency.
And yet, I still get the three a.m. stress sweats, as regular as, well, clockwork. If I’m worrying about money, I know it’s three a.m. A milky drink and a look at the stars can help, but I’ve found the best escape is back – BACK! – into ‘forties and ‘fifties radio shows. Being an Afterworder, you’ll probably think of the dear old BBC, and that’s why I’m here, to introduce you (if introduction be necessary) to the rich world of vintage US radio shows.
I listen on a couple of web sites, dumb.com (simplest interface and search) and archive.org (annoying interface, but downloadable to your device of choice). Oops – three sites – add oldradioworld.com to the list. I started with Jack Benny, whose shows go back to the early ‘thirties, and worked my way through what’s available to the ‘fifties. TV sitcoms found their genesis here – Jack Benny’s show was the original “show about nothing” – a meta-show about being a radio show. And it established the familiar banter with the bandleader. Benny’s greatest bandleader partner was Phil Harris (yup – Baloo) who established himself as an integral character, and led a dynamite swing band. Much of the humour – especially in the early shows – is past its sell-by date, but at its best there’s a timeless brilliance at work at its peak. There’s possibly the most brilliant gag ever broadcast on radio buried here, involving a tin cup on a walk to Ronald Coleman’s house. But no spoilers. The spontaneous eruption of the studio audience is well deserved.
The other comedy show I’ve binged through is Duffy’s Tavern, which got off to a good start but ended in a typical “not as good as it used to be” series. The setting is a seedy, down heel bar on Third Avenue, which bizarrely attracts A-list Hollywood celebs (hearing Vincent Price ham it up is a delight). You’ll hear where Cheers got a lot of its format ideas from. The Simpsons referenced it with Moe changing Archie’s introductory line “where the elite meet to eat” to “where the elite meet to drink”. The scripts were whip-smart – this was the NY intellectual’s comedy show, in spite of its apparent dumbness, with some pretty nifty wordplay.
Other comedies popular at the time can fall totally flat for me, but your mileage may differ.
My favourite genre is cop/detective, such a rich vein to mine. Start with the obvious, Dragnet, and maybe the Phillip Marlowe shows, and dig deeper. Broadway Is My Beat, Gangbusters, and individual sleuths like Barrie Craig. The absolute jewel in the crown is 21st Precinct. Downbeat, concise, brilliantly plotted, it’s an audio-verité mic-on-the-wall at a NY police station which set the pace for all following slice-of-life TV shows, like Hill Street Blues. With a magisterial central performance from Everett Sloan. Click the link below and save yourself a search.
Caveat – you have to learn to ignore some common conventions of the time, such as intrusive footsteps and Wurlitzer mood music – aaargh! 21st Precinct is unusual in having no music, but creating a complete (“immersive”) soundscape with effects. Sponsored shows could afford orchestras and big bands, vocal groups etc. Low-budgets usually involved some old guy on a mighty Wurlitzer.
I’ve also enjoyed westerns and “scary mystery” shows. Every genre is out there. And the period ads can be enjoyable in their own right – did you know that back then they made cigarettes that were actually beneficial for your health? Why don’t they still make those?
If you haven’t yet put a toe into this particular ocean of entertainment – give it a try. Dragnet and 21st Precinct beat out the new HBO/Netflix series, every time, and in under thirty minutes. Binge movies for your ears!
I usually fall asleep to Richard Diamond and only occasionally make it to the end of an episode,which in the long run makes it all the more worthwhile because I never run out of episodes.
https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Richard_Diamond_Private_Detective_Singles
Ahhhhh ….
“… in under thirty minutes.” Music to my ears.
My no. 1 question in assessing whether something, anything, should warrant my attention is “When was it?”
My second question is “How long is it?”
There is no third question.
Right. Maybe it’s senility, but I’m finding movies (or their current equivalent, TV series) just too damn long. Thirty minutes I can hack, and, if it’s really good, stay awake for.
That sounds like a great thing. I’d like to listen to You Bet Your Life, so I will certainly look into that. Never heard of Duffy’s Tavern – might be good for a long car ride we are doing next week with the kiddies. I’m assuming no-one says any cuss words and all that unpleasant sex business is given a wide berth.
By the way – nice to see you here again.
Geez BC, kids are gonna love yoU on that trip
I see your point :-). Having said that I do have an 11 year old boy who is a Groucho Marx fan. He’s not fussed about Harpo and Chico.
Wait til he sees Zeppo, eh Readers?
Forget all of the above – Stuart Maclean’s Vinyl Cafe: the best, most poignant, most sentimental, most funny radio show ever.
Link? A-Roonie?
All 463,000 episodes in YouTube as per https://youtu.be/voC-hUxn764
For those of you in Canada I’m pretty sure CBS has the whole shudoogle archived
Thanks for the link suggestions – I will investigate, I love stuff like this.
This brings to mind a fascination I occasionally indulge, the Dalek ray-run negative to your warm Technicolor fifties radio shows, a listen guaranteed to invoke a strange Greeneish mix of slight paranoia and images of black and white foggy streets in Vienna, Berlin or London; the numbers stations:
[audio src="https://archive.org/details/The_Conet_Project-1681/The_Conet_Project_-_03_-_counting_control.mp3" /]
Nice to see you again old fruit.
Number Nine, Number Nine …This worse than listening to CONELRAD!
Thank you.
Well, I headed off to dumb.com – which, chums, seems to be completely ad-free so enjoy it while it lasts.
Was going to listen to one of the worthy shows mentioned by HPS, but got sidetracked by the Allied Radio Artists radio jungles. Dozens to choose from, but my fave so far is Lindy Winky Bootery…
http://dumb.com/oldtimeradio/listen/31697/Music/Allied_Radio_Artists_radio_jingles/Lindy_Winky_Bootery.html
Or is it Witts Truck Rental? “When you’re stuck, don’t buy a truck…” Imagine the temptation when they were recording that one…
http://dumb.com/oldtimeradio/listen/31750/Music/Allied_Radio_Artists_radio_jingles/Witt_s_Truck_Rental.html
Now for Duffy’s Tavern. Interested to discover that gob-iron maestro and Dixon of Dock Green hitmaker Larry Adler is in the cast.
Adler guests, he’s not a cast member. The regular cast includes a dumb broad, a dumb Irishman, another dumb Irishman, and a savvy black waiter – a stereotype to offend everyone.
Whatever. I’d forgotten he had a whole career in the US before he attracted the attention of HUAC. Talking of which, I Was a Communist for the FBI starring Dana Andrews looks like a lulu. It’s…McCarthy’s Half Hour…
“Whatever”? What are you, fifteen?
Yes.
Props!
I said on the Charles Paris thread that my favourite source is Fourble. (Fourble.co.uk) I tend to check the new additions most days & pick a series to work through.
It’s more UK focused than other sites I’ve found, with lots of forgotten Radio 4 serials & comedies, mostly from the last 30 years.
One particular fave I found before Christmas was “The secret life of Rosewood Avenue” a 1990 comedy starring James Grout as a naive vicar
https://fourble.co.uk/podcast/avenue
Or as it says “ It concerned the Reverend Timothy Carswell, a timid and somewhat naive vicar who is assigned to an apparently respectable parish which is actually a hotbed of (among other things) gossip, passion, geriatric prostitution and murder … all of which is going on under Reverend Carswell’s unsuspecting nose”
For older radio (OTR) shows I still use radioechoes.com which tend to be lower bandwidth, but can be searched for by series or genre.
‘Rosewood Avenue’ gets a run every few months on Radio 4 Extra.
That’s good to know, so I can let those that don’t stream find it next time around.
The link to a sizeable archive of UK radio comedy that I posted in an earlier AW thread “UK Radio Show Archives”
no longer works, as the owner was getting more attention than he could cope with thanks to a surge in it’s popularity. He now wishes to make it less obviously accessible, due to it’s legal status being a rather grey area.
All of the material is still there (and still increasing) and he now has better hosting off-site, so if anyone is still interested, access is now by invitation only.
Contact him (address is on the site) and he’ll give you the necessary links to his archives.
Great! I was going to comment that his archive had gone dark & was sad that all his effort had gone to waste. I’ll send him a message & hopefully be accepted.
Probably 20 years ago now, a local book store was going out of business and they had a big blowout sale. Amongst the bargains I found was a series of cassettes of recordings from the 40s and early 50s. Apparently it was fairly common practice back then that when a movie had finished shooting, the cast would perform the movie as a play onstage in front of an audience, which was then broadcast on the radio.
I need to look online and see if they’re available somewhere. It was a fascinating discovery to me – I didn’t even know that was a thing!
Along the same lines as above, they used to produce small glossy paperbacks of entire movies – screenshots on each page with the dialogue. I had Close Encounters, Heaven Can Wait and Love at First Bite.
I had a few of these myself. Doing a quick search, I discovered that they were from “The Screen Guild Theater” with the actors donating their fees to charity (“ Fees these actors would typically charge were donated to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, in order to support the creation and maintenance of the Motion Picture Country Home for retired actors”)
527 of them were made, they’re in public domain & available on archive.org
Here’s the link
https://archive.org/details/ScreenGuildTheater
You may be some time
Have listened to a few Hancock Half Hours lately. Paul Merton made the point that the TV show looks about 300 years old because of the appalling video quality, but the radio shows (almost) sound like they were recorded yesterday.
Bit disappointed you’re not all piling in to celebrate Burt’s return with a hamper. As his own site descends ever further into madness and mayhem the old fella needs a helping hand from his old mates, don’t he?
C’mon , only 75 to go – we can do it!
ps anyone seen Gary lately? Last I heard he was “under investigation” but that’s usually solved by a few lira and “Do you really want these photos published?”
Quite made my day when H.P popped up on the iPod thread.
Whither @moose-the-mooche ? Not seen Moosey for ages now. Doesn’t seem right to add ‘hurrr’ to a thread, even if someone says obvious filth like ‘pump-charge’.
Who’s Burt?
(tee hee)
Hi Saucy! It’s soooo good to hear from you.
Blimey, and no @andielou for a yonks either. Keep that candle flame lit, “Burt”…….
Calling @drakeygirl, @hannah and @minibreakfast , he’s back!!
And, um, @moose-the-mooche
Pretty sure @hannah won’t be celebrating.
Seconded! Great to have you back.
My relentless diet of cloudberry and reindeer stew was in bad need of some spice and vice.